Page 41 of Unexpected

While I was immersed in the memories, Michael left the room and reappeared with his toiletries bag stuffed to the brim. With the amount he was packing, it looked like he didn’t expect to return for a while.

I wondered if he could smell the bleach in the bathroom. I had used almost the entire gallon jug just on the bathroom floor where it had splattered and then on the counter where I had gripped to keep from falling to the floor where I ended up anyway. He had to have smelled it.

Stuffing his toiletries into my suitcase, he zipped it and surveyed the room. He must’ve noticed the pile of bloody towels and our bloody comforter in the corner, but if he did, he didn’t react. He didn’t react to the uncharacteristically unkempt room. He didn’t seem to notice anything, or care, until he saw my discarded engagement ring on our dresser.

His eyes narrowed at the ring, and he crossed the large room in only a few strides. He carefully picked it up like it was a bomb that would detonate at any moment. I could see the wheels in his head turning as he tried to understand what it meant that I left the house without it on—I didn’t usually take my ring off for any reason, which was an explicit request from Michael when he first put it on my finger.

“This looks too good on you, so I don’t want you to ever take it off,” he’d said years earlier.

Truthfully, I hadn’t meant to leave it, especially in such a conspicuous location. But when I got to Luke’s last night and realized I had forgotten it, I didn’t go back for it. It felt wrong wearing a ring Michael had so gently slipped onto my finger all those years ago while that same hand, that same man, had given me black eyes and a busted nose.

Still hidden halfway in Luke’s bathroom, I watched as Michael shook his head at the large diamond in his hand. He twisted it back and forth, glinting slightly in the small ray of light that peeked through the blinds. Without a second thought, he ripped the lamp from the dresser right in front of him and heaved it across the room at the opposite wall. I could hear it shatter from where I stood and flinched as if he had actually thrown it at me.

I knew in my bones that if I had been there, he would’ve aimed the lamp at me.

He heaved a few more breaths, took one final look at the ring and shoved it in the front pocket of his jeans. He scrubbed both hands down his face before he grabbed the suitcase and left the room.

That should have been my cue to also leave Luke’s room, but I couldn’t move. He had taken my engagement ring and the overabundance of emotions storming through me kept me frozen in place.

I knew last night was a turning point. After years of gaslighting, torment, narcissism, and anger, I needed to be done. When he made me truly bleed, something in me snapped. For a while, I had been planning what I would do if I wanted to leave: where I would go, what I would say to my family, how much money I needed.

I had the fundamental aspects of an elementary plan, and I would put it into action to the best of my ability. I knew it was for the best. I couldn’t do this for one more day, one more minute, and my life was quite literally on the line. But it still hurt, watching him scowl at my engagement ring and stuff it into his pocket. I would never wear it again, I told myself.

Whether it was for the best or not, when a part of your life comes to such a violent, tragic end, it still hurts.

I hadn’t realized I started crying until I heard Josh say my name when he came into Luke’s room. I quickly tried to right myself, wiping the tears from my cheeks and sniffling quietly.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked with a tentative hand on my shoulder.

I cleared my throat. “Umm, Michael was getting his stuff,” I said, pointing toward the window.

Josh nodded. “How long will he be gone?”

“I’m not sure. Probably a week, at least.”

For a moment, we stood there in silence as I stared out the window at the few broken shards of the lamp I could see on our bedroom floor. Josh didn’t move his hand from my shoulder, and although it could have been awkward, it was oddly comforting. He didn’t seem to expect me to say anything, and I didn’t expect him to have words of wisdom for me either.

“I was going to watch a movie. Want to join?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

In the few seconds it took me to respond, I contemplated going back to my own house. Every square inch of it was in serious need of cleaning, and I needed to set my plan in motion. Step one: clean up, step two: get my shit together, and step three: get the fuck out. But the thought of going back into the house just after Michael was there, walking in and out of the same rooms where less than twelve hours ago, I thought my life was going to possibly end, didn’t sound good. It made me sick to my stomach thinking about it.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

It could all wait until later. I suddenly realized that I had my entire life to figure out once again since the life I thought I was going to have disintegrated right before my eyes. It could all wait.

So, I curled up on the couch with Sadie, Josh plopped on the other end, and we watched movie after movie until my lack of sleep the night before caught up to me.

EIGHTEEN

Luke

I shutoff the clinic lights and waited with the door open for the few stragglers to follow me out. Our receptionist and two of the vet techs waved goodbye as they all headed toward their cars.

As usual, Crystal was the last one out the door so she could catch me alone. I had made the mistake once, right after I began working at the clinic and right after I moved, of acting interested in Crystal for a moment.

She was pretty, had a nice smile and was quite obviously interested in me, her new boss. After one conversation with her in which she insinuated that her sexual appetite was insatiable, I knew she could be a good distraction from my recent chaotic divorce. I was desperate to move on and get Valerie out of my head once and for all.

But after one coffee date, I realized the error of my ways. Dating my staff was not going to bode well, and Crystal wanted so much more than I was willing to give. I made it clear then that I didn’t believe we were compatible for a number of reasons, but I had to give it to her, the woman didn’t give up. Even three years later, she continued taking any opportunity to ask me out or flirt.

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